Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me: Third Trimester Edition

*Defying all laws of time and space, the last month of pregnancy is significantly longer than the previous 8.

*All of the issues (nausea, sleepiness, vomiting, utter bat-shit craziness) that plagued you during trimester 1 will rear their ugly head yet again. Only it’s less charming this time.

*(especially if it’s your first baby) You’ll imagine each and every twinge to be the Start Of Labor and probably end up in L/D more times than you’d think only to be told that you’re not even contracting.

*After you have this baby, you’ll agree that nothing feels like labor except for…well, labor.

*Ending up in L/D and being sent home will make you feel more embarrassed than you’d imagine would be a logical reaction.

*Speaking of “logical,” you’re not. And you haven’t been for a long time. You won’t know how nuts you are until after the wee one comes and you realize that you no longer have any urge to clean the toliet with a toothbrush.

*Leaking pee will become a new and disgusting way of life. And you’ll occasionally think it’s your bag of waters breaking. It’s probably not. But, take it from me, get that fucker checked out.

*If you’re like me, the hospital bag you pack will go largely untouched, so don’t freak out. They’ll usually give you free ickle bottles of shampoo and the lot. Use these and then THROW THEM AWAY. Sure, you’re in L/D or Mother/Baby, but it’s still a hospital. And hospitals = germies.

*You will finally tire of talking about this baby because all that you can think about is how ready you are for this to be over.

*The fears of labor will quickly be replaced by the fears of never having this damn baby.

*Having wee feet kicking your internal organs and trying desperately to seperate your ribs from your spinal cord is just as charming (and painful) as you imagine it will be.

*Did I mention how off the rocker you are? Because you TOTALLY are.

*Once you hit 37 weeks, people will check in on you daily with one annoying question: have you had that baby yet? You may very well want to smack them.

*People will start snickering when you walk into a room. Presumably because you now look like Grimace. Or a Weeble.

*You will start to moan and groan every time you have to change positions. And you will be acutely aware of how dumb you sound and how feeble you now are.

*Try as best as you can to rest and revel in the attention people are paying to you right now. Because once that baby gets here, swollen and stitched up vagina and all, no one will give a flying crap about you. Just the baby.

*Your breasts are going to develop a mind (and body!) of their own. They will be equally as painful now as they were back in old trimester 1.

You forgot to mention that not only is neatly peeing in a very tiny cup a fun weekly activity but that wiping the nether regions becomes an act of blind ambition. I can’t decide if my arms shrunk making it impossible for them to reach said parts or if my belly really was THAT big.

Well, it kinda goes with “off your rocker,” but I think the strong desire to kill everyone in the delivery room until the epidural kicks in is pretty significant, and should definitely be mentioned to the significant other, who will be shocked when you threaten to cut his balls off if he says another word or touches your leg one friggin more time.

*None of your maternity clothes will fit you. Since there is really no point in spending any money to wear clothes for 3 weeks, you opt for the fashion-forward choice of sweatpants and the largest t-shirt you can find. And your belly still hangs out the bottom in all its stretch-marked glory.

*If you have my doctor, the weekly visit becomes a torture session. First, there’s the ever-pleasant internal check. Then the absolute refusal to discuss anything about what might happen if the baby doesn’t come by the due date (“let’s get there, and we’ll see what happens” was the standard line). And, of course, the peeing in the cup with all its associated happiness…

They can tell you that you’ll forget how bad your labor was once you see the baby but yeah…LIES!! ALL LIES!! I STILL remember every gory detail and the baby is nearly fourteen.

Oh and forget about eating a sustenance producing meal from about 36 weeks until after childbirth, as your stomach will be forced to relocate to your sinus passages in order to make room for Captain Fetus.

*You WILL try every Old Wives’ Tale possible to the get that baby to COME OUT! NOW!

*You will be so friggin hungry after delivery that there better be a sandwich waiting the instant someone says, “It’s a girl (or boy)!” because if not? Those hormones that you thought would go away post-partum will kick somebody’s ass.

*No one, and I do mean NO ONE, looks good after 36 weeks. The bloating, swelling, sweating, bitching, etc. Deal. Or hibernate.

How about your feet swelling so none of your shoes fit? And my fetal Pipsqueak would get hicccups every day at 3am, waking me up and keeping me awake until 5am. I figured she was training me for when she was born and I’d have to get up to feed her.

I just want a weeble picture! Come on, you can’t tease me like that:) You’re missing how fantastic it’s going to be to have this baby girl, who you will love more than life itself, who will let you buy pink dresses and adorable booties to put on her little body for at least 5-10 minutes at a time, lasting maybe 9 months before she will start arguing back.

Invest in flip flops, because not only can you not see your feet, you can’t tie shoes. And even if you could, they won’t fit on your Fred Flinstone looking feet anyway.
And it doesn’t matter if there’s snow on the ground. I was wearing flip flops in March in Wisconsin. You’ll be sweating so much anyway, it will actually help to walk thru the snow in flip flops.
And just tell anyone who looks at you funny that this is YOUR brand of sexy.

Talk to me when she’s 16, yes SIXTEEN DAYS, overdue. Fucker. Good thing I loves me that baby fiercely NOW, because…damn. Also, no sleeping, hating being touched, talked to, looked at. Hating your feet for being so far away, your couch for not following you to the kitchen, that weird wad of fat that suddenly appears just above your pubic bone…er, good luck! Not long now! It’ll be over before you know it! (those fuckers, I hate those platitude fuckers most of all).

this is kick ass. totally going to print this out and staple it to my head.
seriously- I wish I had known that the 1st trimester crazies would return again. Instead I have just had hours of feeling insane. And bloated.
woo!

* Fear of you water breaking at the most embarrassing times will increase the closer you get to your due date. I lived in constant terror that mine would break and splash all over someone’s feet at the grocery store.

* If you choose to breastfeed, be aware that anytime any baby cries your boobs will think it’s your baby and begin the process of feeding it. If you end up with 2 nipple shaped wet marks on your shirt, just act like it’s a fashion accessory. In conjunction if you are pushing said baby in a shopping cart and it gets hungry, it is possible that baby will pull your shirt up to reveal your full rock hard boobs (encased in a nursing bra) to all shoppers, cashiers & random hobos within a 10 mile radius.

“*Speaking of â€œlogical,â€ youâ€™re not. And you havenâ€™t been for a long time.”

AW, yes. I identify with this on so many levels. Did I ever tell you about the time when I was pregnant and an Elvis song came on the radio, and I started uncontrollably weeping, because, wait for it…..Elvis was dead. Yes, in 2003 I was bawling like a baby because Elvis was dead. Logic, what’s that? LOL!
Hang in there honey! I pray for you every night.

I remember once, being overdue with my first. It was hot. I was miserable beyond belief. My then-husband, not the most compassionate man usually, said to me, “You want to go get popsicles?”
Yes. Such a tiny thing. And I will never forget it. Those popsicles were the best popsicles ever eaten and the only thing in the world I could have actually enjoyed at that moment.
Try a popsicle, honey and hang in there because even though time has been warped into forever and ever and ever, you WILL have a baby.
I know you know that, but it’s good to be reminded.

*when your doctor asks you how you feel about induction and your feet are approximately the size of two Buicks and so you eagerly agree, she does not tell you that induction does not = instant baby. So after six hours of cervadil, hard contractions, hallucination-inducing Stadol, the indignity of internal exams by everyone from the doc to the janitor, more cervadil, not eating for over twenty-four hours, being confined to a bed that’s approximately as comfortable as a granite table in Stonehenge, more internal exams with what feels like a garden weasel, and finally screaming that you will KILL SOMEONE if you don’t get SOMETHING TO EAT, they cave.

They give you jell-o and a popsicle. You eat it with much joy. And your body? Your traitorous body, which has allocated every last resource to contractions? Rejects it. You barf all that wondrous jell-o right back up, while your nurse says, too late, “Yeah. That’s what usually happens.”

Change the message on your answering machine to “No, I haven’t had that baby yet, but thanks for asking, You’ll be the first person I tell when the baby is born.”
Then start screening your phone calls.
Flip-flops are just not going to work in January – maybe some sandals with socks would work?
Likewise – the popsicle – great idea, but not in January.

It’s been so long for me..I got nothing. But..
*Once you hit 37 weeks, people will check in on you daily with one annoying question: have you had that baby yet? You may very well want to smack them.*
To this I say – Go ahead. Those stupid-heads. If you need bail money, I got your back.

No one told me that PAINKILLERS CAN CAUSE SERIOUS CONSTIPATION. It took me 4 kids to find out this little gem the hard way (no pun intended). I had 4 c-sections, therefore I was hopped up on some serious pain meds on 4 separate occasions. WHY OH WHY didn’t anyone tell me this?!?! All of the vaginal-birth moms were being offered stool softeners roughly every 15 minutes. Me? They figured poopy wouldn’t be a problem. Well…..I came home with baby #4 and roughly 24 hours later, I could be found in the bathroom digging the poo out of my rear with q-tips. Yes, folks, I dug and scooped until the worst of it was out. Then I was able to take a proper dump, which I hadn’t done in about 7 days.

Well, how ’bout ‘the baby loves to wedge his ass right in the bottom of your uterus and kick your internal organs, while pushing his ass HARDER into the side of your uterus…and that motherfucking hurts.’ Also, you can’t cut your toenails, so you really need to go get a pedicure. Wish I lived there, we could go together! I made Coach go get me a burger and shake at the little awesome greasy drive in across from the hospital after I had T…it was the best food EVAH.

Those parking spaces for “expectant mothers?” Yeah. You’re never going to get to actually park in one. Instead, you’ll painfully schlepp your separated pelvis, crippling sciatica, and ridiculous bulge of a belly into the store only to find that the restroom is closed.

I found myself stuck in the middle of the mountains due to a car accident backing up traffic. After sitting 2 hours on 48 oz of liquid, I ended up dropping my drawers and peeing in the cup. In front of traffic and my traumatized spouse and child.

The not sleeping thing was for me the worst part of the 3rd trimester, the ONE freaking time in your life when you SHOULD be able to fill up those sleep reserves for the marathon you will soon be facing, and you are freaking up watching infomercials from 2:30-5:30am (and then you fall asleep for the best sleep of the night approx 40 minutes before you have to be awake!)……….

I had c-sections before my due date with both kidlets, and I swear I would have been homicidial if I had been forced to go beyond the due date……my cousin who had a baby a couple of months after me went 16 days over before they decided to induce her for about 36 hours and then when all those good times didnt work, she ended up having a c-section…….I felt really sorry for her, just walking in and going for surgery….MUCH MUCH EASIER (and too this day the thought of a vaginal birth scares me like nobody’s business).

As for the parking spots for expecting mothers, the only time I needed one was for a 6 week stint with a pinched sciatica nerve….. when I REALLY needed those damn parking spaces was AFTER the baby was born and I was schleping that damn infant car seat carrier around!

Not to piss you foff any further – but the last weeks of the 3rd trimester, when you have to go every day ..and you have to a) fit behind the wheel of a car 2) schlepp up the stairs of the office builiding that always has a broken elevator 3) sit in a waiting room with the smell of free pharm reps food that is brought in for the nurses 4) get naked except for the ‘bucket o’undies’ that you’re yet unborn baby has forced you into 5) put on a paper gown 6) ‘hop’ up on a cold table and wait….for the nurse to put the little hearbeat listening device on you …ask if you’ve had the baby yet 7) put your clothes back on 8) waddle back down to your car 9) drive thru lunch because the only time you don’t feel guilty doing scarfing down the Big Mac is when you are pregnant for 10 months (which it is contrary to medical definition of gestational period)
10) go home and answer the stupid fucking questions from everyone and….wait.

AH…the 3rd trimester…the suckiest part of pregnancy…the last 4-6 weeks are HELL on earth..

I needed a CRANE to get out of a chair/bed during my last 4 weeks…forget rolling over in bed..that required a team of 3 men and those infomercial forearm forklift thingies..

and you absolutely will NOT got into labor until you are firmly convinced that this kid is NEVER coming out…& it will be you that walks across the stage when they graduate & said child will reach out and grab the diploma..

I found people in general, extremely annoying. Especially men who feel the need to comment on your size, that your baby is STILL not here, most annoyingly, treat you as a completely irrational human being and blaming it on hormones (and talking about you as if you weren’t there). especially if it is true.

for me, week 37 always led to bouts of crying, sobbing, over NOT getting opportunity to get to do the whole labor and delivery thing. seriously. three scheduled c-sections. i felt cheated and like the world was conspiring against me having 36 mind-numbing horrific hours of labor.

Oh, let’s not forget the itchy skin. And, if one is really lucky, the damn rash that starts on the abdomen and soon spreads like wildfire over the whole body. The maddening itch that will only go away if scratched by dental instruments. Which, really, is not recommended. And the asshats who laugh and say “so, you gonna have another one?” when the one you’re currently gestating isn’t even out yet!!!

I stopped answering the phone when I was nearing the end of my pregnancies (though I rarely answered it before but whatever). It started pissing me off immensely whenever anyone even dared mention that I was still pregnant (being 2 weeks overdue can do that to a gal, haha) and I just started to hibernate. Why do people think that they have to ASK anyway? If you’ve had the baby and they call (and by some miracle don’t already KNOW about the baby’s birth) then do they really believe you will have an entire (coherent) conversation and not mention it on your own? Blah. I’m cranky this morning.

FUNNY! I remember asking a million people what labor / contractions actually felt like. Everyone said something different… “a wave,” “a cramp.” Of course, the truth is it feels like… well, labor! The next time, I’ll know for sure. You’re right. Nothing else feels like it.